Bouncy Castle (cryptography)

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Bouncy Castle
Latest release	1.39
Written in	C# and Java
OS	cross-platform
Genre	cryptography API
License	MIT License
Website	http://bouncycastle.org/

Bouncy castle is a collection of API (Application Programming Interface) used in cryptography. It includes APIs for both the Java and the C# programming languages.

BouncyCastle is Australian in origin and thus American restrictions on the export of crytographic software do not apply to it.

BouncyCastle was started as a result of 2 colleagues being rather tired of having to re-invent a set of cryptography libraries each time they changed jobs. One of the very early design considerations of BouncyCastle came from one of the developers being active in JavaME development, and as a result there are 2 distinct library sets.

The low-level (BC calls this the 'light-weight') API is a vendor (as much as BC is a vendor) specific set of API's that implement all the underlying cryptographic algorithms. The intent is to use the low-level API in memory constrained devices (JavaME) or when easy access to the JCE libraries is not possible (such as distribution in an applet).

The JCE compatible provider is built upon the low-level API's. As such, the source code for the JCE provider is a great example of how to implement many of the "common" crypto problems using the low-level API.

Bouncy Castle is released under the terms of the MIT License. ^[1]